Authorities fired six policemen for failing to investigate dozens of missing children and women, a government official said yesterday, after 17 of their bodies turned up at a house in an affluent New Delhi suburb.
The six officers were fired and three senior officials were suspended on Wednesday following a probe by the Uttar Pradesh State government, said N.C. Bajpai, the Uttar Pradesh State chief secretary.
"More action may be taken against them and, if need be, cases can be lodged against them," Bajpai told reporters in Lucknow, the state capital.
The grisly remains were found in the drains behind a house in Noida, an eastern suburb of New Delhi.
On Wednesday, a court ordered the state government to provide details of the children reported missing in the state in the past year and the action taken by police to trace them.
Relatives of the Noida victims, nearly all of whom came from families of poor migrant workers, complained that police repeatedly ignored their complaints that people had vanished over two years in and around the well-to-do neighborhood.
The federal government on Wednesday ordered an inquiry into the local authorities' response to the disappearances.
The owner of the house, Moninder Singh Pandher, and his domestic servant, Surender Kohli, have been arrested and charged with kidnapping, raping and killing the victims and then dumping their dismembered bodies in the drains.
Police say they confessed to killing 10 children and five women when confronted with photographs during questioning.
Noida police chief R.K.S. Rathore has said Pandher used prostitutes and that when none were available he had Kohli lure children to his house.
There has been widespread outrage in India since police on Friday began recovering human remains from the drains.
So far, authorities say they've found the remains of at least 17 people, although residents say 38 people have disappeared in the past two years.
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